


Revenant

by anneapocalypse



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Agender Character, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Injury, Minor Character Death, Other, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:30:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharkface was part of a team, and it was never supposed to end like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Termination

**Author's Note:**

> Agender Sharkface headcanon is thanks to [redteamshark](http://redteamshark.tumblr.com) on tumblr, who is an inspiration.

The letter of termination is automated, on Charon Industries crisp digital letterhead.

It promises a sizable severance check, as well as a six-month extension of healthcare benefits.

Sharky reads all of this on a datapad from the comfort of a double room at the residential rehabilitation clinic on the north side of Volutia, while the TV monitors are still scrolling footage from the orbital bombing a week ago.

The notice of Honorable Discharge from the UNSC comes a half hour later, with the gag order attached.

Shark gets on chatternet and sends four messages after that.

_cap, what’s the story?_

_rufus where are you guys?_

_hey mila did you get a letter_

_zenk you fucking meathead put down the iron for two seconds and text me back_

Scrolls back to the first recipient, sends one more.

_pindola i swear to god_

 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Supposed to beat those fucking pirates back to the hole they crawled out of, supposed to end with them all busting into the room while Shark’s trying to sleep, all of them screaming “SHARKAYYYYYYYYYYYY” and Sharky’d say, “Fuck, am I ugly?” and Mila would cross her arms and smirk and say, “I don’t see a difference,” and Píndola would say, “Sick as the day you were born, T.”

And they’d all be back together soon, in the city, at Longshore, out on the belt, didn’t matter. They always stuck together. They were a team.

 

The days crawl by, and no one texts back.

Then–

 

“Shit. You been here the whole time?”

“Fucking Christ, Mila, you could’ve fucking texted me.”

“Hard to text when you can’t move.” Mila glides across the room on a sleek black and red motorchair. “First day vertical.”

Sharky swallows over the lump in their throat and through the pain in their jaw, easing off the parallel bars and back into their own chair. “Mila. God. You’re here. I thought–”

“Me and half a spine,” Mila says, shrugging. “More’n the rest got out with.”

Sharky freezes. “No.”

“They hit Longshore. Fell right out of the sky.”

“Shit,” Sharky breathes, chest tightening. “Everyone else–”

“Everyone else.” Mila swallows visibly. Her blonde hair’s been cut, shaved around underneath, left long on top, where she’s twisted it into a messy knot. Her roots are showing. “Everyone but us, and the Captain.”

“Píndola made it.”

“Shark. He…” Mila’s jaw tenses. “He left us. He jetted in a pod with the spook bitch. Got clear.”

“Jesus,” Sharky groans.

“I know.” Mila rubs her face with one hand. No makeup, exhaustion still bruised under her eyes. “I watched Zenk go down, that fucking brute monster just snapped his neck and tossed him on the ground…”

“Don’t tell me about the rest,” Sharky mutters. “Not now. Fuck, Mila. I’m sorry. And they will be too.”

Mila just shakes her head.

“We go after them. Paycheck or not, Mila, we can do it. Once we get out of this place. Get some upgrades, mods–”

“Sharky, no.” Mila rolls back an inch or so. “I’m getting out of this business. Taking my fat check and gonna go live on an outer colony somewhere. I’m done, T. This is the last crew I’m gonna watch die.”

“Mila, come on,” Shark growls, tries to. It just sounds pleading instead.

She sighs, turning her face away. The loose knot of her hair lolls to one side, there’s bandaging still taped over the back of her shaved head. “What happened to you, anyway?”

She looks back up, and god, her smile’s so fucking _sad_. Somehow that’s how it finally hits that they’re gone, all of them–Zenk, Rufus, TJ, the twins. And fucking Píndola.

“It was so fucking stupid, Shark, you shoulda seen it. I fell. Smashed my back on the edge of the dock, went into the drink. Armor’s floatation device kicked in, otherwise I’d be dead. Still came pretty close. They had to drill into my skull to let the fluid out. Lucky I can still remember my own name.”

Her bright eyes cut into him, sharp with as much affection as pain. “Be good if you didn’t run off and die, too, asshole. After all this.”

“After all this,” Sharky repeats. “What else?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t fucking know.”

Sharky sighs. “Me either.”


	2. Bitter Pill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings** : smoking, death, dead body descriptions, gendered slurs, alcohol mention.

Finding Píndola was supposed to make things less shitty. It didn’t.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Sharkface says.

Shockingly, the corpse doesn’t respond.

 

It’s viciously hot in this dump, some kind of abandoned Sangheili shrine on a lonely little planet, far far away from where it all happened. Interior’s all pockmarked with bullet holes. No plasma burns. Outside, dead hingeheads half-buried in the sand. Dead humans piled up against one wall.

And up top…

It wasn’t her. Just her armor. Some kind of energy weapon burn right through the center mass, the hideous brown amor seared black where the beam penetrated, melted, curling in. No blood. Instant cauterization, instant death.

“You prick,” Sharkface says to the corpse, and spits.

 

Píndola’s eyes were open when Shark took the helmet off.

They closed them, but they can’t fucking stop seeing it, that vacant gaping stare. Scalp’s stubbly on the sides where he always kept it shaved close. Scruff on his face. Eyes dead and yellowed. Sharkface feels nauseous looking at him even with them shut, but can’t stop looking, like one of these times the face might melt into the waves of heat, disappear, just a dream. Not really him.

“I hate you,” Shark growls into the hot wind. Wants to hate Píndola as badly as those fucking pirates, as badly as they hate the bitch in the brown armor who said she could help and stole everything from them.

Sharkface gazes dully into the arid horizon until their eyes starts to burn with the heat and the dryness and the dust and still they can’t stop seeing Píndola’s dead stare. Shark blinks hard, squeezes their eyes shut until the good eye tears up--the bad side feels dry, irritated, need to get some drops into it--but all they can see behind closed eyes is Píndola, those dark brown eyes laughing, or gleaming sharp with the bark of an order, or turning away to look at her.

Shark wants to hate him for that, more than anything, and just when they think they do, when their fists clench and the rage builds almost tight enough in their chest to squeeze all the rest out, they think of Píndola laughing again, and it’s all gone and it just feels hollow, raw, like someone’s burned their insides out.

 

None of the dead humans are her. Shark checked every fucking one of them.

But he has her armor.

“You fucking fuckstick,” Sharky mutters, into the wind that’s kicking up again, blowing sand in their face. Should’ve helmeted up again but Shark has about a third of a cigarette left and isn’t fucking done. “You shitbrain fuckface asshole. You _motherfucker_.”

Sharkface inhales smoke and spits curses until they run out, and light up another.

 

Mila hasn’t responded since they pinged her on arrival. Sharky messages her again.

_found pindola._

Mila shoots back a reply in minutes.

_where the hell are you?_

_sanguinus system. some hingehead temple._

Shark waits a minute or two for her to ask, but she doesn’t.

_he’s dead. wearing her armor._

The delay is longer this time. The air is stifling, rank, the yellow sky dizzying and all the pins in his joints hurting. Sharkface stares at the ripples of heat rising up along the horizon until they start to feel sick again, and sucks a long drag off the cigarette.

_sorry, t._

_fuck him. what do you want to bet she turned on him_

Mila replies quicker this time. 

_i dont want to bet anything_

_i wonder though_

_i see them die again every time i try to sleep, t. i dont need to wonder._

Sharkface hisses between their teeth and almost throws the COM pad off the temple.

Whose fucking fault was it, that they weren’t there? Stuck in rehab while their whole squad died? Those fucks dropped a building on them and Shark crawled the fuck out. _Survived_. 

Failed the mission. Let them get out with the crate. But made it. They were all supposed to make it.

_fine, fuck you too_

Sharky regrets the message as soon as it’s sent.

Waits for Mila to text back, but she doesn’t.

 

Should bury Píndola, probably. Respectful thing to do, but right now Sharkface is feeling anything but respectful.

Their helmet keeps blinking inside, the HUD blithely prompting to enter a new objective. Fine. Objective: get off this garbage planet and find somewhere to get shitfaced. Fast as possible.

Píndola’s body gets kicked off the top of the temple. Shark watches him fall, listens to him land with a dull thud. Picks up the helmet and throws that off, too. It lands face-up in the sand, those vacant eyeholes still staring.

“Bye, Píndola,” Shark says, spitting the cigarette butt after, watching the ember flare and die. “Hope she was worth it, you fuck.”

 


	3. Blood Trail

Sanguinus II is the most unsettling fucking place Sharkface has ever been. And that’s after being stationed like two steps from the front lines before the Charon offer came up, leading to the reassignment that’s probably the reason they’re not dead. The first time over. Lucky fuckin’ break.

Some kinda weird civil war going on on this planet. What meager population there is is squared off in these little boxed-in bases, fighting each other. Nobody can explain why they’re fighting each other, other than “Because we’re Red and they’re Blue.” Doesn't make any fucking sense, but Sharkface figures out pretty quick that red armor accents are enough to get you shot at (badly) for venturing too near a Blue base. Good enough reason to stick to the Reds.

But they’ve heard of Freelancers.

They’re not Red or Blue, the soldiers say. Just guns for hire. Really fuckin’ scary, one soldier adds. That sounds like the pirates, sort of. But no one can say where to find them. All they ever say is, “Call Command.”

What the hell, Shark figures, and gets the comm freq from the local Red sergeant, and calls Red Command.

 

"’Sup, dude."

That’s… weirdly casual, but whatever. Might as well play along.

“‘Sup. You got any Freelancers in the vicinity of…” Shit, what’s the name of this dump again. “...Rat’s Nest?”

“No can do, dude, no available agents. You’re on your own for this one, dude.”

“He’s been saying that for weeks,” the Red Sergeant adds. “That exact thing.”

“Well, can you give me the whereabouts of the nearest agent, then?”

“No dice, my dude. Confidential information. Classified like your ass-ified.”

 _The fuck is with this guy?_   Sharkface mouths at the Red Sergeant, who shrugs.

"Let me talk to your CO.”

“Beg your pardon, dude—”

“Your _boss_. Who’s in charge. Put them on.”

"No can do, dude, big man's away, not at home, out to lunch, gone fishing, dig me, dude? How ‘bout you try callin’ back... never."

_“Up. Yours.”_

“Not very cool, dude.”

Sharkface grits their teeth. Shame they’re not on vidCOM. All the scars make their grimace a lot more intimidating than it used to be. “I want to talk to someone who can fuckin’ answer a question, you got that?”

“No can do, dude. Can’t send you up the ladder without the authorization code.”

“Authorization code?”

“Bingo-bango, patchin’ you through.”

“You’re telling me the authorization code is _‘authorization code?!’”_

 

"Freelancer Command."

The voice that picks up after several minutes of elevator music is brusque, businesslike, and entirely different than Red Command. Freelancer Command. It’s real. A command center. All the way out here in the middle of nowhere? How big is their fucking operation, anyway?

Shark realizes they haven’t said anything. Shit. Didn’t honestly expect to get this far. Uh.

“I need coordinates on all Freelancer—” Agents? That was word the guy used. “—agents active on Sanguinus II.”

There’s a suspicious pause. “Who is this?”

“It’s, uh.” Sharkface rubs their tongue against the scar tissue on the uncomfortably dry left side of their mouth. Salivary glands don’t really work on that side anymore. “Captain Shark... _facé.”_

"Quit screwin' around," she snaps, and disconnects.

But not before Shark’s HUD gets a read on the signal.

 

The radio signal is relayed from a box canyon to the west. Not much to see there. Just two empty bases. Comm towers still active. But no sign of anyone in Red Base.

“Hey! Who the fuck are you?”

Well, maybe they aren’t both empty.

The soldier who emerges from the Blue base isn't... blue. She's yellow. Sharkface blinks a few times just to make sure. She also has her helmet off, dark hair dip-dyed blonde at the tips tumbling in loose messy curls over her shoulders, framing a pretty, round face. She’s eating a candy bar.

"I said hey, asshole! Who the fuck are you?"

"Who the fuck are _you?"_  Shark hisses.

"Uh, I'm Captain Grif! Duh!"

"You're... a Captain."

"Chyah! There was a Captain before I got here, but he, like, died. And now everyone else is gone, so now I'm the Captain!" She tosses her hair triumphantly. "It's called chain of command?"

"Uh," says Sharkface, squinting in the glare of the bright sun. "Right. Command. Where is Command, anyway?"

"Hell if I know! That guy's so boring. All he ever says is—" The yellow soldier adopts a startlingly accurate imitation of the prick on the radio. "No can do, dude! You're on your own for this one, dude!" She laughs. "Anyway, whatever. You sticking around, or what? Hey! You know how to dance?"

 _“No,”_ Sharkface growls.

“No you’re not staying, or no you can’t dance? Whatever! Your loss, loser.”

What the fuck is with this place?

 

The signal isn’t coming from either of the bases’ radio transmitters. It seems to be bounced from underground somewhere. There’s a series of caves, the Blue Captain grudgingly points out, with admonishments that the caverns are “super boring, and dark, and gross.” She’s not wrong.

The caverns are vast, quiet except for the occasional flutter of bats, hollow and echoing off the walls. The place smells dank and nasty. There are bodies on the floor. One in black armor, one in blue. That’s it. Just two bodies.

To be perfectly honest, Sharkface kind of expected more bodies.

 

There are so many turns, corridors, Shark has to use the HUD map just to keep from going in circles—but there’s nothing. Almost nothing. Except when Shark turns a corner, somewhere in the dark atrium of the cavern, and finds themself squinting at a dark computer terminal. There’s a light still blinking, the hum of a fan running. Shark taps the keyboard, pushes a couple of buttons, but the computer doesn’t respond.

Sharkface slams a fist into the screen in frustration and a cacophony of flapping and fluttering and screeching explodes overheard. Almost jump out of their fucking skin. The cloud of bats flutters off into the far end of the cavern, chittering in the dark, and Shark grits their teeth and wants to kill something. Feels like they’ve been down here in the dark forever, like the dank and the cold is seeping into their bones even through the armor, and the sheer fucking _nonsensicalness_ of all of it is overwhelming and so infuriating Sharkface feels like they’d just as soon drop a tactical nuke on this whole planet. Blow it all to hell.

 _“Where the fuck are you?”_ Sharkface screams into the dark. “Who the fuck _are_ you people?”

The only response is an echo, and more fluttering in the distant corners.

Nothing but a dead end. And their HUD prompting for a new objective again.

Sharkface thinks of the severance credits in their bank account. Thinks about Píndola and his dead eyes. Thinks about the gravity hammer to the face and the rumble of a hundred and ten stories collapsing to dust. That crushing feeling in their chest that never really goes away.

Yeah. Need a new objective all right.


	4. Ephemera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for alcohol abuse.

After Sanguinus, nothing feels real.

Sharkface wonders if it’s a side effect of the slipspace travel. It’s always disorienting, waking up from cryo, but maybe for some people it’s worse. Shark isn’t seeing things, exactly, they just...

Keep catching these weird flashes out of the corner of their eye. Keep thinking they see somebody familiar—Píndola, or Zenk, or Mila. But no way Mila’s back in Volutia.

Hell, Sharkface doesn’t know why the hell _they’re_ back here, except that after nothing but dead ends, there was nowhere else to go.

But maybe it’s worse here. Because Shark feels the ghosts of them everywhere, their laughter, their voices, and god, every time somebody so much as _smiles_  in the periphery of their vision, all they can see is Píndola’s stupid shit-eating grin he used to have on all the time, before the pirates. Before the hits started shredding their squad, before he fell for a Freelancer.

Someone laughs across the bar, a laugh sharp and nasal like TJ and Sharkface wants to rip the rest of their face off.

Too many people. Too many voices. Too easy to bleed credits on booze. But with nothing to kill, no one in their sights, it’s the easiest anesthetic.

You okay? the barkeep asks. Sharkface snarls from where they’re resting the bad side of their face on the bar. Would flip her off but it seems like too much effort right now, raising a hand.

Sharkface stares blearily through the liquid distortion of the glass. Forget how many it’s been. Not like they don’t have the credits, now, but it takes so much more these days, after the augmentations. The pins in their joints hurt when it rains, hurt when they don't sleep, hurt when they try, hurt when they move, hurt when they don't. Hurt when they think about them. Everything hurts. All that metal aching in their bones, _useless_ until they find somebody to put down with it.

Should’ve stayed out in Sanguinus, should’ve looked harder, god damn it. Who the fuck are they to be here, resting on a pile of blood money while those fucking pirates are still out there.

Have to try harder for them. For all of them. Mila too, Shark thinks. Even Píndola. Píndola always at the watery edges of their vision. Just out of reach. Laughing.

_“Lighten up, T! You always get so sentimental when you’re plastered.”_

Fuck Píndola, actually.

 

Calling anyone when they’re this fucked up is a bad idea. Calling Mila is probably an even worse idea. Coming back to Volutia was probably the worst idea of them all, and after a month of bad decisions, Sharkface figures: what’s one more.

Mila actually answers. Sharkface doesn't know whether to be grateful.

"You sound like shit, Shark."

Shark feels like shit. Mila lets them slur their half-sobbed misery at her for a good ten minutes. Months of digging, searching. No leads. No team. No nothing.

When Shark stops for air, and not entirely convinced they aren't about to puke, she sighs heavily.

"They weren't pirates, Shark."

Even through their drunken haze, that hits home.

"Whaddyou mean?"

"The Freelancers were military. Black ops. Some ONI bullshit, I don't know. But they were UNSC."

"You knewthisssand... never tol me?"

She's angry. Shark doesn’t understand why she’s angry at them. "What _difference_ would it have made, Shark?"

What difference? Every fucking difference. Not pirates. Not some souped-up merc company. Actual military. Hitting a private corporation? _Why?_

Nothing makes sense anymore.

"Howd'you know?"

"Teej did some digging." She sighs. "Píndola knew. Didn't feel like sharing apparently."

"Fuck Píndola," Shark spits.

"I shouldn't even have told you probably. Fuck, Shark, do you get it now? This is why I got out while I could. The Freelancers are _bad shit_ , T. Really bad. Longshore was a slaughter. That's not what I signed up for."

"So you jus’ gonna walk away and let them get away with it?"

"They already got away with it! You notice there wasn't a fucking word on the net about Longshore? Only reason Volutia made headlines was they killed civilians. And blamed it on 'Insurrectionists.' The government covered the whole thing up. Nobody gives a fuck about a bunch of subcontracted headknockers like us. And even if they did? It's not gonna bring them back. They're dead. Including Píndola. You want to hate somebody, hate him. He's not around to care."

“Fuck you,” Sharkface slurs.

"Shark," she says, softly. "You’re really fucked up."

Shark grunts.

"Yeah. I am too. I know. I _know_.” The emotion comes back into her voice, thick, achey, and Sharkface drinks it in, evidence she feels it—evidence _somebody_ else feels this utter ripped-open-and-bled-out misery. “I miss Zenk so bad some days I want to rip my own teeth out, T. But you can’t do this. You can't let it destroy the rest of your life.”

Sharky hiccups into the COM pad.

Mila sighs. "Go sober up, kid. I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for."

"Mila," Shark says, desperately.

"Goodbye, Shark," she says, and disconnects.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming along on this heartfuck! If you'd like to see Shark get a happy ending after all this awfulness, [I've got that too](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4840784).


End file.
